Welcome to Atelopus.com

The Atelopus species live in the American tropics. During the last 20 years the populations have declined over most of their distribution range. In the last 10 years several well studied populations that have gone extinct from nature, for example the golden frog (Atelopus zeteki) that we chose to use in our logo. There is a combination of reasons for the disappearing of these frogs but the main reasons are the loss of habitat, disease, pesticides and climate change. It has been told that of the 113 harlequin frog species of Central and South America, at least 30 have vanished in the last 20 years. Also 81 percent of the adequately studied species are in decline because of the above mentioned reasons. Besides all this bad news it should also be told that there are probably many more species of Atelopus that haven’t been discovered and/or described until this day.We want to try and expose a little bit more about these wonderful forest-dwelling neotropical toads, called harlequin frogs, to the world. By spreading more information about them we might hopefully be part in helping the world to be aware of this genus of species that is disappearing. Letting people know more about these animals might be a step in getting help for them to survive in the wild.We hope you’ll enjoy the photos and information on this website.

Atelopus crucígerMonitored by: Manuel Guerreiro (Venezuela). Date: Spring 2009 (May 30)Location: Henry Pittier (South of "Ciudad de Cata")Population status: Critically Endangered although stable in numbers.Other info: This population was discovered less than a decade ago, after not having been seen since 1986

Last year observed

This is a list that we try to keep updated with help from reports that has been sent to us. There is no guarantee that these animals has not been observed just because we havn't added something in the list. A missing observation means that we havn't had it reported, or that the observation has been too weak or doubtful for being added. Click here to see the list.

Than you Daniela Rößler for offering your helping hand to Atelopus.com!

Our Motivation

The Atelopus are disappearing rapidly in Latin America and we, in the role of frog-lovers, would hate to see them disappear from their natural habitat. We have build this website to get more attention for these lovely beings and we hope to get more people to recognize this problem. Let's hope this website is not the last place where you can see the Atelopus species in the future.

Monitoring Atelopus

It's interesting to know about how the status is of the diffrent Atelopus populations. If you have been in a population recently or at least later then published here, please tell us. We will publish the recieved information, photos or just the latest seen list.If you have any information that you want to share, please e-mail us

Copyrights

We respect copyrights and we expect you to do the same with our website and all the diffrent authors that have choosen to let us use their material like photos, videos or information.Please contact us if you want to use something. We are easy, we hope you too....

Thanks

To build the content of this website we recieved alot help and pictures. Special thanks go to M. Bartelds, R. Stuster and J. Yeager in the start. We would also like to thank; B. Vilette, J. v/d Meulen, G. Benaets, G. Bartelds, E. Twomey, C. Barrio, D. Mejia Vargas, J. Meere, E. La Marca, S. Lötters and alot of more people.

Knowledge

Half of the amount of the world’s amphibian species could vanish within our lifetime, resulting in the single largest mass extinction since the disappearance of the dinosaurs.

New species are still found every year. No one knows how many species we never found until it was to late.

Who?

This website was founded by Dennis Nilsson (Sweden) and Marcus Bartelds (Netherlands) in 2008.The site is now managed by Dennis Nilsson alone.Without help from researchers, enthusiasts and volunteers all over the world would not this website exist. - Helper Wanted! Contact us.